


Continuity

by paint_me_a_revolution



Series: Tales From the Haunted House [3]
Category: 1789 - バスティーユの恋人たち | 1789: Les Amants de la Bastille - Toho, 1789: Les Amants de la Bastille - Various Composers/Attia & Chouquet
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Fluff, Haunted Houses, Light Angst, Like, Multi, Ronan Mazurier Has No Chill, really light
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-08
Updated: 2019-03-24
Packaged: 2019-11-14 00:34:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18042071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paint_me_a_revolution/pseuds/paint_me_a_revolution
Summary: Ronan Mazurier wasn't keeping secrets. He just hadn't found the right opportunity to tell everyone...





	1. Confrontations

     It wasn’t really a secret, Ronan rationalised, if he just kept forgetting to bring it up. It had nothing, _nothing_ to do with the fact that he was dating his boss. It also had nothing to do with the fact that said boss was almost twenty years his senior. Yes, Ronan was going to tell everyone eventually. Maybe even by the end of the week.

     “Penny for your thoughts.”

     Ronan jumped. Camille was standing just behind his left shoulder, fixing Ronan with an earnest, worried look. “It’s nothing,” Ronan said, laughing a little. “I was thinking about what I’m going to have for dinner.”

     “Of course you were,” Camille chuckled, but he had a glint in his eye that said he wasn’t entirely convinced. “I just came to tell you the show’s starting in 15 minutes. Lazare was wondering where you’d gone off to.”

     Ronan’s heart fluttered a little. It had been two, almost three weeks, and he still got butterflies every time someone mentioned Lazare. The man’s gaze sent shivers up his spine. His voice…God. “Tell him I’m just finishing my makeup.”

     Camille sighed. “He’s not going to like that. He told you to be ready at first call.”

     The flutters turned into nervous pounding. “Am I the last one?” Ronan asked, glancing around the changing room. Even Maxime’s station was empty. “Fuck. I promised I wouldn’t keep doing this!”

     “It could always be worse. Danton just got caught eating peanut butter in costume.”

     Ronan snorted. “Done,” he announced, licking a bit of fake blood from the corner of his mouth. Camille winced. “What? It’s the flavoured stuff.”

     “You’re supposed to be wearing it, not eating it.”

     “Then they should stop making it so delicious.” Ronan squared his shoulders. “Well, time to face the music.”

     The music, as it turned out, was one very amused Lazare. “Do you ever listen?” he said, arms folded across his chest. He was wearing what had once no doubt been a very smart looking lab coat. Now, however, it was drenched in fake blood. His hair was slicked back, his beard neatly powdered grey. Admittedly, Ronan didn’t really _mind_ the grey.

     “You look distinguished.” Ronan stepped closer, reaching out to pull Lazare in by the collar.

     “You look like a man who’s trying to butter me up.” Lazare let himself be reeled in, but pulled his head back as Ronan went in for a kiss. “You’ll smudge your makeup _and_ mine. Really, Ronan, stop.”

     Ronan laughed. “Sorry, sorry! Am I with Camille tonight?”

     “You’re with Danton and Maxime.”

     Without meaning to, Ronan groaned aloud. “What the fuck?” he asked, fixing Lazare with a baleful look. “You just hate me, don’t you?”

     Lazare rolled his eyes. “Quite the opposite. Now get moving.”

     In the rush of the show, Ronan almost forgot his worries. Twice, he stopped Maxime from grabbing an unsuspecting customer (and once he failed, resulting in the most brilliant scream he’d ever heard). Both times, Maxime grumbled angrily about the waivers guests signed before coming into his ‘domain’. Ronan did his best to send the man on his way, but it was difficult in such a small space. Danton, despite his promises otherwise, spent most of the show lounging on a tatty couch in the far corner. Ronan made a mental note to ask Lazare if it was possible to confiscate it.

     He was pulled from his act halfway through the show by the sound of a scream and angry shouting. Ronan twisted around to see Maxime frozen in confusion, staring at a pretty blonde woman who was hiding behind her tall companion. The companion, a man with what looked like more muscle than brain, towered over Maxime threateningly. Maxime squared his shoulders and tilted his chin up to meet the man’s eyes. “I told you,” he said, crystal clear now that Ronan was listening, “you signed a waiver to get in here. I’m not responsible for _her—“_ He jerked a thumb at the blonde woman, “being too wimp to handle it.”

     “Maxime!” Ronan chastised. The tall man reached out and shoved his co-worker. Maxime fell back, smacking his head against the edge of a cabinet. Ronan saw red. The next thing he knew, he was being pulled off of the guest by Danton and Camille, who’d apparently heard the commotion from his own room and come running.

     “That guy’s fucking crazy,” the man hissed, jabbing a finger into Ronan’s chest. Ronan snarled and tried to wriggle out of Camille’s grip. On the ground, Maxime was struggling to sit up, wiping blood from his temple with one shaking hand.

     “You’re the crazy one,” Ronan shot back. “You and your crazy fucking girlfriend need to get the fuck out of here.”

     For the first time since the fight started, the blonde woman spoke up. “Do you know who we are?” she demanded, arms crossed.

     “No,” Ronan snapped, “and I don’t care.” He shook Camille off. “Let go of me!”

     Of course, like most things, it ended in the office. “Was it necessary to punch the Swedish ambassador?” Lazare asked, his disappointed gaze flitting between Ronan, Camille and Danton in turn. “And could _none_ of you stop him?”

     “How was I supposed to know he was the Swedish ambassador?” Ronan protested, sitting bolt upright in his seat. Nerves made his stomach feel tight and cold. He thought about what Solène would do if he were arrested. She could support herself, sure, and had been for years, but after the death of their father, Ronan couldn’t put her in that position. “He’s…He’s not pressing charges, is he?”

     “You’re lucky he’s not,” Lazare snapped. “He’d win, without a doubt.”

     Ronan sighed. “Are Camille and Danton in trouble?” he asked.

     “Not at all.”

     “Then can they go?”

     At Lazare’s nod, the pair filed out. Ronan took a deep breath, steeling himself, and looked into his partner’s disappointed face. “You’re not…are you _mad_ at me?”

     Lazare sighed. “You were sticking up for Maxime,” he said slowly. “I can’t fault your heart for being in the right place. But I _can_ fault your stupid decisions.” There was a pause. Lazare crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair. “And I can’t favour you, or _this,”_ he waved a hand between Ronan and himself, “would be quite apparent. I’m in a very difficult position, Ronan.”

     “I know. Please don’t fire me.”

     That actually prompted a surprised laugh from Lazare. “Why would I fire you?” he said incredulously. “I’m putting you on the front desk until further notice. Please report there tomorrow. Lucile will train you up.”

     “Are you sure?” Ronan asked, standing up and inching toward the door. Lazare nodded. “Uh…Can I kiss you goodnight, or are you mad at me?”

     “Oh, come here,” Lazare said. Ronan melted happily into his arms.

     “I’m sorry.”

     “Don’t be,” Lazare assured him. “Just…don’t punch customers anymore. _Especially_ not if they’re ambassadors.”

     Ronan laughed. “Shut up,” he mumbled against Lazare’s neck. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

     He could hear Lazare’s soft laughter as he walked away.


	2. Suspicion

     “Hey! My favourite sister!” 

     Solène stuck up her middle finger without even turning around. “Only sister. I hear you got fired,” she said. “Can you zip me up?”

     Ronan tugged the zipper, wincing as it pinched a bit of Solène’s skin. She yelped. “Sorry!”

     “So, when were you going to tell me what happened?” Solène asked, twisting around to look at her brother. Ronan ducked his head. “You almost got _fired?”_

     “It’s no big deal,” Ronan assured her. His sister raised an eyebrow. “Fine, it was kind of scary. I totally thought I was gonna get fired. But it’s over, and I didn’t!”

     Solène kept looking at Ronan, long after he thought the looking period was over. She tilted her head to the side, like she always did when she was honing a particularly pointed question, and chewed on her lip, arms folded over her chest in thought. “Lazare went pretty easy on you, didn’t he?”

     Ronan choked. “What?” he coughed out, scrambling for an answer that didn’t seem too desperate. “He put me on _desk duty!”_

     “And I’m pretty sure if I’d done it, he’d have fired me. Look.” Solène sighed heavily. “I’m not saying he’s playing favourites or anything. It’s just…”

     “Just what?”

     “Curious.”

     Ronan was cleaning out his station in the changing room when Maxime found him. He was pale and wobbly, with an impressive bruise that spread from his temple down his cheek, but he grinned when he saw Ronan. “I wanted to thank you for saving my ass,” he said, reaching out to clap Ronan on the shoulder. Ronan drew away, a strange, angry heat burning in the pit of his stomach. “Ronan?”

     “Don’t worry about it,” Ronan forced through his teeth, trying to smile. “Anyone would have done the same.” He shoved a pot of concealer and a brush into his bag. “Just…don’t pull that shit again, Maxime.”

Maxime’s brow furrowed, as though it had just dawned on him what Ronan was doing. “Why are you…?” he started. His eyes went wide. “I didn’t get you fired, did I?”

     “No,” Ronan snapped. “ _You_ didn’t do anything. That’s kind of the problem.” He knew immediately that it was the wrong thing to say. Maxime took a step back, eyes welling, and looked down at the floor. “Max, I’m sorry.”

     “No.” Maxime blinked back a few tears. “Sorry.” He dragged both hands under his eyes and cleared his throat. “It’s just…it’s the concussion. I’m going to…” He turned to go.

     “Wait!” When Maxime looked back, Ronan wasted no time in tackling him. He squeezed so hard he thought he heard Maxime’s shoulder pop, and then Maxime was hugging back, face buried in Ronan’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, Maxime. None of this was your fault.”

     “It’s fine.” Maxime leaned his cheek against Ronan’s shoulder for a moment longer than necessary—probably drying his tears, Ronan thought with no small amount of amusement—and then stepped back. “Can I help you clean up, at least?”

     “Yeah, sure,” Ronan agreed. “It’ll go faster with two of us.”

     They set to work. A few times, Ronan saw Maxime quietly rubbing away fresh tears, but he didn’t bring it up again. In less than an hour, everything was packed up and ready to go home. Ronan pretended the sight didn’t sting.

     Lazare called Ronan into his office an hour before opening. He was sitting at his desk, legs crossed, one elbow on the desktop as he propped his chin in his hand. “How are you doing?” he asked. 

     “I’m great,” Ronan said. “Did you know there are six million different types of refunds?”

     Lazare’s smile was so wide it deepened the faint lines around his eyes. “That good, huh?”

     Groaning, Ronan sat on the edge of Lazare’s desk. “I just don’t know if I can hack it,” he complained. “I punched a guest! How am I supposed to deal with giving Karen her money back?”

     Lazare reached out and took one of Ronan’s hands in both of his. His hands were warm and smooth, nothing like Ronan’s callused ones. Sometimes, like now, the difference between them was so obvious that it made Ronan’s heart ache. And then Lazare smiled again, and pressed warm lips to the back of Ronan’s hand, and the ache faded. “You’ll be fine, Ronan,” said Lazare evenly. He kissed Ronan’s hand again, only to all but shove him away as someone knocked on the door.

     It was Olympe. She glanced back and forth between the two of them like a startled deer. “I’m sorry,” she stammered nervously. “Did I interrupt something?”

     “Nothing to interrupt,” Ronan said, and watched guiltily as hurt spread across Lazare’s face. _Damnit, you’re the one who let go first!_

     “Did you need something?” Lazare asked, turning his chair a bit to face her better. “We were just running through Ronan’s new responsibilities, nothing important.”

     “I…uh…” Olympe looked ready to scurry out at any minute. Perhaps she could taste the tension in the room, or perhaps she was just the kind of human being who got nervous during confrontations. Ronan highly doubted the latter. “I was wondering if you wanted me in a different room tonight, since everyone’s been rearranged.”

     Lazare sighed heavily. Ronan knew before he even opened his mouth that he was going to use his Disappointed Dad voice. God, Ronan loved the Disappointed Dad voice. “If I’d wanted you in a different room, I’d have put you in a different room,” he said. “Honestly, Olympe.”

     “I know! I’m sorry!” She dashed out, all but slamming the door behind her. Ronan heard her nervous giggling in the hall, along with Maxime’s loud, rough laughter.

     “I think they’re figuring it out,” Ronan whispered, turning sheepishly to Lazare. The older man levelled him with a look that could freeze the heart of a volcano.

     “You _think?”_


	3. Revelations

     It took all of Ronan’s willpower not to rise to the bait. He sat in the ticket booth with Maxime, who was banned from any strenuous, loud, or otherwise taxing activity and had started the night as energetic as ever but was slowly starting to wane. Ronan, despite his instincts, was determined not to ask how he was doing. If he asked, that would open up a line of communication, and then Maxime might ask _him_ what he was doing with the boss. Nope. Asking was not an option.

     Fortunately, someone else got there first. Lucile swung by the ticket booth during a break between shows. “How’s my boy doing?” she asked, kissing Maxime on the cheek.

     “Sleepy,” Maxime said with a yawn. He propped his chin on his fist and blinked up at Lucile. “Bored.”

     “I’ll bet you are. And Ronan, how are you?” The look she gave Ronan was _knowing._ He cleared his throat uncomfortably and looked away. 

     “I’m fine. Bored.”

     Lucile laughed. “No one said it was an easy job,” she told him. “In fact, I remember saying quite the opposite. I’ll tell you, Ronan, I’m glad to be out of this booth. The _things_ I’ve had said to me.” With a wry smile, Lucile added, “Though I bet if you asked, the boss would assign you somewhere else.” She shared a look with Maxime, who did his best to turn the resulting laugh into a cough.

     “What’s that supposed to mean?” Ronan demanded.

     “Nothing!” Lucile’s smile was all white teeth and bright eyes. She gave Maxime one last kiss on the cheek, squeezed Ronan’s shoulder, and ran off the way she’d come in, her yellow vest glinting in the dim light of the hallway. Ronan turned baleful eyes on Maxime.

     “What?” he demanded. “I didn’t do anything!”

     Yeah. They _knew._

     The night wrapped up rather uneventfully. Maxime had wandered off about an hour before closing, mumbling complaints about the ticket booth. Ronan found him asleep on Lucile’s cot, his long, heavy coat draped over him like a blanket. Lucile was sitting next to him, petting his hair, and she flashed Ronan a smile as he peered around the door. Solène was apparently fighting with Danton again as she barely noticed Ronan when he passed her in the hall, busy jamming her finger against Danton’s chest and snapping with a ferocity that had the much larger man quaking in his boots.

     “Keep it classy!” Ronan called over his shoulder as he ducked into Lazare’s office. It was, admittedly, a very stupid idea to call attention to himself like that, but Ronan had never been the smartest. When he turned toward the desk, he saw his partner sitting there, face already washed of the night’s heavy makeup, an amused smile playing on his lips.

     “Weren’t we trying to keep things, how did you put it, on the ‘down low’?” Lazare asked. Ronan could _hear_ the air-quotes.

     “She’s busy kicking Danton’s ass,” Ronan said. “Solène’ll be busy for at least another ten minutes, which means…” He took a seat on Lazare’s desk and grabbed a fistful of the man’s collar. “No one’s gonna notice if we take a bit.”

“Of course they’re going to notice!” Lazare argued, turning his face to the side so Ronan’s eager lips caught his cheek instead of his mouth.

     “Come on!” he complained, sitting back. Lazare looked frustratingly collected, not at all what Ronan was expecting. “Just five minutes. Give me five minutes.”

     “You have two. And for God’s sake, don’t get blood on my shirt.”

     Ronan laughed into the ensuing kiss. The sounds of the outside world faded away, or perhaps were drowned out by the blood pounding in Ronan’s ears. Lazare’s right hand found the small of Ronan’s back, warm and firm and grounding. The desk was digging into Ronan’s thighs, so he slid down until he was straddling Lazare’s lap. The fingers of one hand tangled in Lazare’s hair, the other climbing up to the back of his neck. For a moment, it was perfect. Then—

     “Boss, I—“

     Ronan and Lazare leapt apart. Solène was standing in the entryway, a stunned, almost vacant expression on her face. “What. The. _Fuck_.”

Lazare, for once, was speechless. He’d thrown Ronan off almost as soon as the door opened (which he’d pay for, Ronan promised that), and now he was opening and closing his mouth like a fish out of water. Ronan would have laughed if not for the shame burning in his stomach and his red cheeks.

     “You better have a good explanation for this.” Solène’s tone was low and dangerous. Ashamed, Ronan refused to meet her eyes.

     “Solène,” Lazare seemed to have found his voice, “please calm down.”

     Solène’s glare intensified. “Don’t tell me to calm down,” she snapped. “I get why Ronan didn’t say anything, but I expected better from my _boss.”_ With that, she stormed out the way she came. Ronan held his breath as the door slammed shut; behind him, the silence suggested that Lazare was doing the same.

     Finally, Lazare spoke. “That could have gone better,” he said calmly.

“I don’t see how it could have gone worse,” Ronan agreed. “Come on, let’s face the music.”


End file.
